What Love Is
by Kellyrandom12
Summary: Bones is trying to figure out what love is all about. Is it just a chemical reaction, a fairy tale, or something greater than that?


Title:What Love Is

Rating:K

Disclaimer:The thoughts are mine, the character are not :(

Author's Note-This thought started when I heard somebody singing the song 'You Can't Always Get What You Want'. I started thinking about if want was a love or a need, and VOILA! This came out of it!

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Love is a funny word, if you think about it; it has no definite meaning. Sure, the dictionary can use some big words to make it sound sweet, give it some meaning, and to supply people a sense of security. Scientists will argue that it's a chemical reaction. Some big worded element mixing with some kind of microscopic doodad with a 4-syllable long name. A 'regular' person may go off on some long story about how loving someone means never wanting to let them go, but doing whatever you must to keep them happy. A teenager may describe it as someone that carries your books and calls you 'babe' or 'hun', while a small child may think of princes and princesses, long stories of triumph, and happily ever after. Which one has it right? The one who sees love as nothing more than science? How about the one who would sacrifice their own happiness for someone else's? Or maybe it's the one who thinks love is the most wonderful thing in the world, and that it has no consequences but a life full of enjoyment.

At this moment in time, Dr. Temperance Brennan could not answer that question. She was beyond confused about what she felt, read, or thought about. For years, love had just been another word in her vocabulary. Her family had left her and after finding no hope in foster homes, the word carried no meaning. She had forgotten what it was like to believe in love, but after years of working around Agent Seeley Booth, she was beginning to understand, and perhaps even feel it again.

It must have been a gradual process. Talking, going to the diner, eventually eating take-out at each other's houses-all of these must have built the feelings up to the point at which Brennan felt now. She hadn't realized it, of course, and now, looking back, she felt somewhat like a fool. What kind of scientist was she if she didn't even register the fact that her own partner was beginning to grow on her, to be a major part of her life. She was only now starting to accept the fact that she couldn't live without him.

As a child, she had dreamt of love. Of fairy tales with happily ever afters. It was a dumb thing to dream of-princes and dragons and magical kisses that would wake one even from the deepest of slumbers-but who was a little girl to help it? Of course, once she reached 10 years old she realized that none of this could be true. She observed the world around her, and that led to the conclusion that love was simply someone who was around you all the time, someone you had an attachment to. Her theory, again, was proven wrong when her family had left and she had nobody around to show what love was. She became a scientist, and that, along with not having felt love in so long, made her believe that the thing people called love was simply a chemical reaction in the brain releasing endorphins and hormones that made people feel good about it. But is wasn't so simple, as she soon came to discover. After meeting Booth, she began to feel happiness again. When something bad happened to her, he was willing to give up his own happiness for hers. This, she could only conclude, was love. That was her epiphany. When she finally realized that he loved her, she realized that she, too, loved him. This is when she got confused.

Could one person really be the cause of so much happiness, so much joy, and so much pain all at once? Why was it that, although they both wanted and felt the same things, they were forced to stay apart? Brennan felt a little like Juliet, and like Booth was Romeo. Instead of a family feud preventing them from being together, it was themselves and a line. It was up to them to cross that line though, and for some reason they were both too afraid of getting caught. But there were times when they would secretly meet, with the soft touches and subtle looks. Those were the only times they could express any love at all, when really, it was nothing. And in the end, when another tragedy strikes, they would sacrifice everything, even their own life, or happiness, for the other.

It was all too bittersweet for her liking, and she was sick and tired of the games they played. Why couldn't love end in happily ever after? Better yet, why couldn't it start with that? What gave them the right to hold back from something that was so utterly incredible that every person in the world had some way of defining it, some way of expressing it? Whether it be chemical processes, or fairy tales, or sacrifice, everyone longs for someone they can rely on, for someone they can talk to every night and wake up to every morning, for someone to love. And here they were, Booth and Brennan, the most selfish people in the world;they had found love, but chose not to act on it, save for a few small glances and oh so small touches. That was not fair. That was not fair to her. It was not fair to him. And it wasn't fair to anybody else who had ever dreamed of finding what they had. Since she was a woman of science, she had to act on facts and experiments. You couldn't gather evidence only to leave the file open;you had to do something when things came your way, and love is one of those things.

Brennan took a deep breath. She took a sip of water, put down 'Anthropology Today', and grabbed her coat. She didn't bother shutting off the lights or locking her door. Right now, she wasn't a scientist. She wasn't an adolescent teen wandering the halls looking for someone to hold her in their arms. She wasn't a toddler dreaming of castles and rainbows and happily ever afters. She was Bones, and she believed in love. She was Bones, and she felt love. She was Bones, and with a little help from the man she loved, she was going to start her own happily ever after.

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As always, thanks for taking your time to read! Like I said, if you have any constructive criticism or comments, please either leave a review or send me a PM.

Thanks again!

*Kelly*


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